ACIM Chapter 7. XI. The State of Grace, P 5-7. When a mind has only light, it knows only light.
ACIM Chapter 7. XI. The State of Grace, P 5-7
XI. The State of Grace, P 5
5 When a mind has only light, it knows only light. Its own radiance shines all around it, and extends out into the darkness of other minds, transforming them into majesty. The Majesty of God is there, for you to recognize and appreciate and know. Recognizing the Majesty of God as your brother is to accept your own inheritance. God gives only equally. If you recognize His gift in anyone, you have acknowledged what He has given you. Nothing is so easy to recognize as truth. This is the recognition that is immediate, clear and natural. You have trained yourself not to recognize it, and this has been very difficult for you.
Oh my gosh! I am so ready for this! That is why I practice the Course all the time. It is why I watch my mind for errors so they can be corrected. My whole mind will return to its natural state of light. I am certain of this because I can see how close I am to reaching that goal. I also understand that the light is there whether I acknowledge it or not. What I am cannot change. I will know myself as I am when that is all that I want.
There is in me now a compelling desire to shine that light into every other mind and to transform it. I understand that to know my own light, I must be willing to acknowledge that light in everyone else. Since God gives equally, I will see in another what I believe is in me. And what I see in another will witness to what is in me. This is why we are here, just to do this.
It’s one or the other.
I understand that to have this, to have an awareness of the light that I am and see only the light everywhere I look, I must be willing to relinquish everything that is not light. Yesterday, I saw myself choose darkness more than once. And it was over such petty stuff! What was I thinking? On the other hand, I noticed when I did it. I asked that my perceptions be corrected. That is my purpose, not to be perfect. If I were already perfect, I wouldn’t be here. My purpose is to notice the errors and give them to the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit, I am willing to see the effects of the darkness I still hold onto so that I can finally realize that I don’t want it. I am willing to see the beliefs that sourced those effects so that I can relinquish them forever. I really do want to awaken from this dark dream and return to light. Mostly, I understand that to be in the light and to know myself as the light requires total commitment. I am dedicated to this purpose, and I am devoted to this practice. I am ready.
XI. The State of Grace, P 6
6 Out of your natural environment you may well ask, “What is truth?” since truth is the environment by which and for which you were created. You do not know yourself, because you do not know your Creator. You do not know your creations because you do not know your brothers, who created them with you. I have already said that only the whole Sonship is worthy to be co-creator with God, because only the whole Sonship can create like Him. Whenever you heal a brother by recognizing his worth, you are acknowledging his power to create and yours. He cannot have lost what you recognize, and you must have the glory you see in him. He is a co-creator with God with you. Deny his creative power, and you are denying yours and that of God Who created you.
God created me to be a co-creator with Him. The me I speak of here is the true Self, which is one with all aspects of Itself. Speaking more clearly, the “me” spoken of here is the Sonship as a whole. We remember ourselves as co-creators as we remember our Oneness. Because this is true, it is just as important that my brother wakes up as it is that I wake up. We must know ourselves as whole again.
I wake up my brother by recognizing the truth of who he is.
I recognize his worth as an aspect of the Sonship. I do this without regard to appearances. I disregard them because they are not real. The mirrors in a fun house at the carnival might fascinate me, but I am not going to weep because one shows me a distorted vision of myself. Neither will I be misled because the world shows me a distorted vision of my brother.
If the fun house mirror effect temporarily dupes my brother, I can enlighten him by being clear-sighted and not being fooled by the effect myself. I will then acknowledge only his real self. At some point, he will notice that I see something he does not see, and his mind will open to another vision. This process may be a verbal one, but not necessarily. What happens at the level of mind is more important than what happens in form.
My continued faith and trust in him may well be all that is needed to awaken the truth in his mind and help him cultivate his own trust, no matter how weakened it might be. As I help him to recognize his own glory, I am convinced of mine. What a perfect and elegant plan the Atonement is.
XI. The State of Grace, P 7
7 You cannot deny part of truth. You do not know your creations because you do not know their creator. You do not know yourself because you do not know yours. Your creations cannot establish your reality, any more than you can establish God’s. But you can know both. Being is known by sharing. Because God shared His Being with you, you can know Him. But you must also know all He created, to know what they have shared. Without your Father you will not know your fatherhood. The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are as like the Sons as they are like the Father. Know, then, the Sons of God, and you will know all creation.
This is the clearest Jesus has been about our creations. God created us through sharing His Being with us. We created our children by sharing Our Being with them. I don’t even know what to say about that. To accept this, I must fully accept my Divinity. I am not a smaller, child-like version of God. I am like God.
This is done. I am created, and the nature of my creation is certain and cannot change. My creations share that certainty and changelessness. But I don’t remember this. I have blocked it from my mind with thoughts of separation. To remember any of it, I must remember it all. I must remember God, and my brothers as my brothers, all of them, leaving none out, seeing none as unworthy. I must remember my children. It is a complete package, or it remains lost to me.
The way I remember is through sharing.
I was created through the sharing of God, and I created through the sharing of my Self, so this is how I will regain my memory. The only thing stopping this is that I am still trying to pick and choose parts of the Sonship to accept and with whom to share. I cannot quite bring myself to accept this one person. Or I find a young woman I know to be unworthy of my acceptance. Or I doubt this one who calls himself a teacher.
Until I am willing to know each and every brother as part of the Sonship, perfect and holy and free of the stain of sin, I will not know my Self. Until then, I deny myself unbroken communion with my Creator and my creations. I am not here by accident. I chose it, and I choose it again and again all through the day, each time I refuse to acknowledge even a single person as part of my Whole Self.
I will probably not spend the day in perfect sharing of my Self with other aspects of my Self. I may condemn one person or another for some little error they make. I may use some precious brother as a scapegoat for the unwanted dark bits of myself and project them onto that one I separate out for that purpose, pretending he is the guilty one, not me. But if I do, I pray that I remember the horrible cost of doing so and change my mind. I pray that the Holy Spirit will correct my perception and heal my mind.
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